This is Burnie (formerly Bruno.) My wife couldn´t bear any longer not to have a dog, so she started prowling the web sites of various animal rescue organizations. I don´t know exactly how many dogs she looked into adopting or how many people she called, but one night she asked me to go with her to just look at a dog.

So Wednesday evening, March 19, 2003 we went to the animal kennel in Edison, NJ where someone turned a dog in for adoption. Bruno was a 4 year old Golden Retriever with a nice personality. The story was that he growled and barked at the owner. Bruno was pretty scared of the animal shelter. We took him for a short walk around the facility and he seemed well behaved and well trained. We went back into the shelter´s office and talked to the lady who volunteered there. We talked for a while and I could see that my wife´s mind was pretty much made up. Bruno would sit up in front of us and beg. He has a really good sense of balance!

Short story: We ended up taking him home for $20. After putting him into the back seat of the truck, we noticed that our new buddy was an awfully stinky buddy. While my wife went to go pickup a take-out dinner, I walked (by now my wife decided on calling him “Brady”) Brady. He was just so stinky! I connected the hose to the utility sink and washed him in the garage where it was pretty warm. He was mostly washed when my wife came home.

Our vet looked at him on Saturday. My wife has finally named him “Burnie”. Burnie received a clean bill of health except for a minor infection in his ears. We were surprised to see that he weighs 80 lb.! He seems to be much smaller than Ducky, but apparently he´s not.

A friend who adopted a cat, well his wife adopted a cat, remarked that he paid $25 for the cat. He said he was overcharged! We got a great big dog for $20 and they got a little cat for $25. I think we just got a good deal on a dog for $0.25 per pound.

We found that Burnie does bark and growl. He does it when he´s excited and playing. It is hardly a menacing growl with that Golden Retriever smile and his tail wagging as fast as he can swing it. Burnie is about as threatening as a teddy bear. We will keep an eye on him, but it looks good so far.

These photos are images that I recorded from the video conference camera on my main PC. Not the greatest quality, but it´ll have to do until I get a few emulsion prints to scan.